1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a composite laminated dough to be used for producing confectionery having a laminated structure, such as pies, pastries, crackers and lemon puffs.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There have been known various methods for producing confectionery having a laminated structure represented by pies and pastries.
Examples of these methods include one which comprises wrapping a fat such as butter or margarine in a rolled dough to thereby form a dough/fat/dough structure and folding it in such a manner as to give a multilayered structure; and one which comprises dispersing a fat in the form of particles in a dough to thereby give a structure wherein the fat is wrapped in the dough and then folding it in such a manner as to give a multilayered structure. When baked in an oven, the laminated dough having the alternate structure of dough and fat layers gives a confectionery product having a laminated structure, since the fat layer appropriately suppresses the emission of water vapor (including carbon dioxide when baker's yeast is employed) and thus is puffed up.
With the recent high growth of economy and increase in income level in Japan, eating habits have been changed accompanied by fancy for high-grade and diversified foods. In the field of baking, oven-fresh bakeries, which supply various fresh (as-baked) products including not only conventional white bread, bean-jam buns, jam buns and cream buns but also a number of variety buns, pies, pastries and buns stuffed with prepared foods, enjoy great popularity. The selling points of these oven-fresh bakeries reside in the freshness and variety of the products of which the customers will not tire. Thus it is a serious problem for a manager to characterize (differentiate) his own shop and to secure a production space and manpower while keeping reasonable production cost.
It is difficult under these circumstances to prepare various laminated confectionery products such as pies and pastries the preparation of which requires much labor in, e.g., fat wrapping, rolling and folding. When a butter of an excellent flavor is to be used for producing these products, further, the characteristics of the butter (i.e., a large change in viscosity depending on temperature) cause the splitting of the fat layer and the adhesion of the dough layers to each other, which makes it impossible to form an excellent laminated dough. When a laminated dough is temporarily stored in a frozen stage in order to save labor, the deterioration is furthermore accelerated.
In the case of a laminated dough containing baker's yeast, the activity of the yeast is lowered during the frozen storage, regardless of the use of butter. When such a dough is baked in an oven, no laminated products showing good puffing properties can be obtained.